Kalman Weiser
York University, History, Faculty Member
This article explores the unlikely collaboration by seminal language scholars Heinz Kloss and Solomon Birnbaum to create a Chair for Yiddish in Weimar Germany on the eve of Hitler's rise to power.
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An overview of the First Yiddish Language Conference (held in Czernowitz in 1908), its reception, and contemporary resonances.
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This article (in Yiddish) recreates a lost chapter in the history of Yiddish Studies and German academic politics - the attempt to create a university Chair for Yiddish in Weimar Germany by an unlikely pair brought together by academic... more
This article (in Yiddish) recreates a lost chapter in the history of Yiddish Studies and German academic politics - the attempt to create a university Chair for Yiddish in Weimar Germany by an unlikely pair brought together by academic interest and practical need: Orthodox Jewish scholar Solomon Birnbaum and German nationalist scholar Heinz Kloss, who joined the Nazi Party and became a renowned scholar of language minority rights after WWII.
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Research Interests: Linguistics and Spelling
The plan to create a Chair for Yiddish at the University of Vilnius, Lithuania (previously the Polish Stefan Batory University) not long after the outbreak of WWII was cause more for acrimonious debates among Yiddishists than for... more
The plan to create a Chair for Yiddish at the University of Vilnius, Lithuania (previously the Polish Stefan Batory University) not long after the outbreak of WWII was cause more for acrimonious debates among Yiddishists than for collective rejoicing. Given the highly politicized and factious nature of interwar Jewish society, this should come as little surprise. The case of the Chair reflects as much personal rivalries and antagonisms as it does differing perspectives among Yiddishists on the very value and viability of secular Yiddish culture at a moment that was widely understood to represent a crossroads in Jewish history. Beyond this, it offers an opportunity to examine relationships between Jews and their neighbours in Eastern Europe in this tense period and to consider contemporary Yiddishists’ own evaluations of prospects for extraterritorial national cultural autonomy for Jews in differing political environments.
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In the following discussion, Weinreich’s perspective on the First Yiddish Language Conference in Czernowitz and his changing understanding of its meaning for Yiddish will be traced across five decades. Naturally, understanding the nature... more
In the following discussion, Weinreich’s perspective on the First Yiddish Language Conference in Czernowitz and his changing understanding of its meaning for Yiddish will be traced across five decades. Naturally, understanding the nature of this evolution means understanding as much about Weinreich’s personal evolution as it does about the times in which he lived. For the sake of convenience, his life may be divided into three phases: 1. His youth and early adulthood (1894–1924) 2. The years 1925–1939, during which he established himself in Vilna, Poland as YIVO’s guiding spirit and an internationally renowned scholar 3. And finally, 1940–1958, when he transformed YIVO into an Americanized institution in New York City.
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Research Interests: Jewish Studies, Nationalism, Poland, Yiddish Studies, Warsaw, and 15 morehistory of Poland, Yiddish Culture and Language, Hillel Zeitlin, Jewish politics, History of Poland in twentieth century, Jewish Diaspora Nationalism, YIVO, Yiddish Linguistics, Yiddishism, Jewish Vilna, Jewish press, Jewish press in Warsaw., Jewish schools, Polin, and Noah Prylucki
This article examines debates in Poland since the 1860s concerning Jews’ naming practices and attempts to resolve the practical and social problems they engendered. Polemics within the Jewish press in Poland, particularly in Warsaw’s... more
This article examines debates in Poland since the 1860s concerning Jews’ naming practices and attempts to resolve the practical and social problems they engendered. Polemics within the Jewish press in Poland, particularly in Warsaw’s Yiddish dailies, reveal competing conceptions of what constitutes an authentic and socially appropriate Jewish name. They also reflect changing perceptions of Yiddish, which had left its stamp on the inventory of names used by Ashkenazic Jews, and its growing place in urban life.
Research Interests: History, Cultural Studies, Onomastics, Urbanization, Judaism, and 14 moreJewish Languages, Ashkenazic Judaism, Jews in Poland, Yiddish Studies, Judaica, Yiddish Culture and Language, Personal Names, History of Poland in twentieth century, Yiddish Linguistics, Polonization, Jewish press in Warsaw., The Jewish community of Warsaw, Jewish Names, and Noah Prylucki
Noah Prylucki (1882-1941), a leading Jewish cultural and political figure in pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe, was a proponent of Yiddishism, a movement that promoted secular Yiddish culture as the basis for Jewish collective identity in the... more
Noah Prylucki (1882-1941), a leading Jewish cultural and political figure in pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe, was a proponent of Yiddishism, a movement that promoted secular Yiddish culture as the basis for Jewish collective identity in the twentieth century. Prylucki's dramatic path - from russified Zionist raised in a Ukrainian shtetl, to Diaspora nationalist parliamentarian in metropolitan Warsaw, to professor of Yiddish in Soviet Lithuania - uniquely reflects the dilemmas and competing options facing the Jews of this era as life in Eastern Europe underwent radical transformation. Using hitherto unexplored archival sources, memoirs, interviews, and materials from the vibrant interwar Jewish and Polish presses, Kalman Weiser investigates the rise and fall of Yiddishism and of Prylucki's political party, the Folkists, in the post-World War One era. Jewish People, Yiddish Nation reveals the life of a remarkable individual and the fortunes of a major cultural movement that has l...
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Apart from the YIVO Institute's Standard Yiddish Orthography, the prevalent sys tem in the secular sector, two other major spelling codes for Yiddish are current today. Sovetisher oysteyg (Soviet spelling) is encountered chiefly... more
Apart from the YIVO Institute's Standard Yiddish Orthography, the prevalent sys tem in the secular sector, two other major spelling codes for Yiddish are current today. Sovetisher oysteyg (Soviet spelling) is encountered chiefly among aging Yid dish speakers from the former Soviet bloc and appears in print with diminishing frequency since the end of the Cold War. In contrast, "maskiIic" spelling, the system haphazardly fashioned by 19th-century proponents of the Jewish Enlightenment (which reflects now obsolete Germanized conventions) continues to thrive in the publications of the expanding hasidic sector. As the one group that has by and large preserved and even encouraged Yiddish as its communal vernacular since the Holocaust, contemporary ultra-Orthodox (and primarily hasidic) Jews regard themselves as the custodians of the language and its traditions. Yiddish is considered a part of the inheritance of their pious East European ancestors, whose way of life they id...
Introduction to the volume "Key Concepts of the Study in Antisemitism," a volume uniting over 20 original essays by leading scholars in a variety of fields addressing the question of what relevance a given concept has for our... more
Introduction to the volume "Key Concepts of the Study in Antisemitism," a volume uniting over 20 original essays by leading scholars in a variety of fields addressing the question of what relevance a given concept has for our understanding of antisemitism. The introduction situates the volume in the context of studies about antisemitism for use in the classroom and explains its design.
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Written with great conciseness and clarity, David Fishman’s collection of essays, a number of which have been published previously and substantively revised, represents a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature about... more
Written with great conciseness and clarity, David Fishman’s collection of essays, a number of which have been published previously and substantively revised, represents a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature about Yiddish in its east European context. It focuses on the Russian Empire and interwar Poland to explore related themes in the rise and fall of secular Yiddish culture between the second half of the nineteenth century and the Holocaust. Fishman writes with great reverence for his subject, noting that he was inspired by the efforts of the poet Abraham Sutzkever and others who risked their lives in Nazi-occupied Vilna by smuggling books, documents, and other artifacts to preserve the eastern European Jewish cultural heritage for posterity—the subject of the book’s final chapter. Fishman understands modern Yiddish culture as not merely belle lettres. Rather, his definition includes the entirety of creative output in the language. In particular, he is intereste...
1 Table of Contents Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 1. The Czernowitz Conference: Contexts, Ironies, and the Verdict of Jewish History Part 4 I. Politics, Language and Ideology Chapter 5 2. A Tale of Two Photographs: Nathan Birnbaum, the... more
1 Table of Contents Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 1. The Czernowitz Conference: Contexts, Ironies, and the Verdict of Jewish History Part 4 I. Politics, Language and Ideology Chapter 5 2. A Tale of Two Photographs: Nathan Birnbaum, the Election of 1907 and the 1908 Yiddish Language Conference Chapter 6 3. Peretz's Commitment to Yiddish in Czernowitz: A National Caprice? Chapter 7 4. Mother tongue, Mame-loshn, and Kulturshprakh: The Tension between Populism and Elitism in the Language Ideology of Noah Prylucki Part 8 II. Literature and the Arts Chapter 9 5. Y. L. Peretz and the Politics of Yiddish Chapter 10 6. Reclaiming Czernowitz in Aharon Appelfeld's Flowers of Darkness Chapter 11 7. Dem Oyle Regls Tokhter: The Poetic Pilgrimage of Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman Chapter 12 8. The Painter as Ethnographer: Maurycy Minkowski and the European Yiddish Intelligentsia before World War I Part 13 III. The Legacy of Czernowitz Chapter 14 9. The Success of the Czernowitz Yiddish Conf...
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A review of Cecile Kuznitz' "YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture. Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation."
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A bibliography of works about the life and career of Max Weinreich, a leading figure in YIVO (The Yiddish Scientific Institute in Vilna, later New York) and pioneer in the fields of Yiddish Studies and Jewish interlinguistics. Apart from... more
A bibliography of works about the life and career of Max Weinreich, a leading figure in YIVO (The Yiddish Scientific Institute in Vilna, later New York) and pioneer in the fields of Yiddish Studies and Jewish interlinguistics. Apart from his magnum opus, The History of the Yiddish Language, Weinreich is best known for popularizing the quip, "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy."
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An exploration of the phonetically precise, multi-dialectal spelling system developed by linguist Solomon Birnbaum as part of his Orthodox Jewish religious ideology and his battle against secular influences on the Yiddish language (in... more
An exploration of the phonetically precise, multi-dialectal spelling system developed by linguist Solomon Birnbaum as part of his Orthodox Jewish religious ideology and his battle against secular influences on the Yiddish language (in Yiddish).
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This chapter explores how and why Eastern European Jewish intellectuals fashioned an image of Montreal as a "reincarnation" of Vilna and what it tells us about their hopes and anxieties for Yiddish language and culture in the first half... more
This chapter explores how and why Eastern European Jewish intellectuals fashioned an image of Montreal as a "reincarnation" of Vilna and what it tells us about their hopes and anxieties for Yiddish language and culture in the first half of the twentieth century.
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This Hebrew-language article provides an overview of the idea of Autonomism (Diaspora Nationalism) in Jewish thought and its application in pre-WWII Eastern Europe.
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The history of the modern Yiddish-language press in Poland is inextricably entwined with the careers of two Ukrainian Jews — Zwi Pryłucki, founder of Warsaw’s first Yiddish daily, Der Veg (1905-1907) and editor of Der Moment (1910-39),... more
The history of the modern Yiddish-language press in Poland is inextricably
entwined with the careers of two Ukrainian Jews — Zwi Pryłucki, founder
of Warsaw’s first Yiddish daily, Der Veg (1905-1907) and editor of Der
Moment (1910-39), and his son Noah, best known for his work in Yiddish
philology and leadership of the interwar Folkspartey. One of two journalistic
families to dominate the Warsaw Yiddish newspaper scene (the other was
the ‘family’ of Samuel Jackan, publisher of Haynt), the Pryłuckis helped
to build the Yiddish press into the most effective means for the diffusion of
Jewish politics and culture to a mass audience. Father and son typified the
new breed of Jewish cultural leader — part ideologist, part entrepreneur —
that laid the foundations of modern Jewish culture in Congress Poland. Their experiences illuminate not only the socio-cultural currents within Polish Jewry during the early decades of the twentieth century but also the transformative role of Yiddish newspapers as both products of modernity and modernizing agents.
entwined with the careers of two Ukrainian Jews — Zwi Pryłucki, founder
of Warsaw’s first Yiddish daily, Der Veg (1905-1907) and editor of Der
Moment (1910-39), and his son Noah, best known for his work in Yiddish
philology and leadership of the interwar Folkspartey. One of two journalistic
families to dominate the Warsaw Yiddish newspaper scene (the other was
the ‘family’ of Samuel Jackan, publisher of Haynt), the Pryłuckis helped
to build the Yiddish press into the most effective means for the diffusion of
Jewish politics and culture to a mass audience. Father and son typified the
new breed of Jewish cultural leader — part ideologist, part entrepreneur —
that laid the foundations of modern Jewish culture in Congress Poland. Their experiences illuminate not only the socio-cultural currents within Polish Jewry during the early decades of the twentieth century but also the transformative role of Yiddish newspapers as both products of modernity and modernizing agents.
Research Interests: Yiddish Literature, Newspaper History, Modern Jewish History, Yiddish Studies, history of Poland, and 11 moreYiddish Culture and Language, Polish-Jewish Relations, Polish Jewish history, Jewish Diaspora Nationalism, HIstory of Zionism and Jewish Nationalism, Russian and Eastern European Jewish History, Polish-Jewish Periodical Press, Polish Jewish History and Culture, History of Warsaw, Noah Prylucki, and Zwi (Tsevi) Prylucki
Der Moment became one of the two largest circulation Yiddish dailies in Poland thanks to the comprehensiveness and diversity of its content, which included local and world news, literature and the arts, sports, popular medicine, and other... more
Der Moment became one of the two largest circulation Yiddish dailies in Poland thanks to the comprehensiveness and diversity of its content, which included local and world news, literature and the arts, sports, popular medicine, and other genres at its height. Together with its bitter rival, the Zionist Der Haynt, it transformed the face of Jewish journalism in the age of mass politics and culture that unfolded following the 1905 Russian Revolution and continued to shape Jewish public opinion in Poland until the outbreak of World War II. It helped to increase the prestige of Yiddish in the eyes of its readers as well as contributed to the formation of journalistic and literary registers in the Jewish vernacular. The very existence of a thriving Yiddish press also challenged the aspirations of the Polish nationalist movement for cultural and political hegemony in a longed for Polish sovereign state, exacerbating tensions between Jews and Poles.
Research Interests: Yiddish Literature, Yiddish Language, Polish History, Jewish History, Newspaper History, and 15 moreJews in Poland, Yiddish Studies, history of Poland, Yiddish Culture and Language, Hillel Zeitlin, Polish-Jewish Relations, History of Jews In Poland, Russian and Eastern European Jewish History, Yiddish Press, Polish-Jewish Periodical Press, Hirsh-Dovid Nomberg, interwar Yiddish press in Poland, Noah Prylucki, kultura żydowska, and Tsevi Prylucki
This article (in Yiddish) discusses debates about the standardization of Yiddish pronunciation in Jewish secular schools in the interwar period, especially in Poland and the USSR.
Research Interests: Jewish Studies, Yiddish Language, Yiddish, Jewish Education, Standard Language Ideology, and 13 moreJews in Poland, Yiddish Studies, Pronunciation, Yiddish Culture and Language, Yiddish Language, Language teaching, Polish Jewish history, Uriel Weinreich, History of Jews In the Soviet Union, Yiddish Dialectology, Max Weinreich, Yiddish Studies / In Yiddish, Russian and Eastern European Jewish History, and Solomon Birnbaum
This chapter is from the revised and expanded second edition of Solomon Birnbaum's Yiddish. A Survey and Grammar (2015). It addresses the origins and history of Birnbaum's classic work (1979) as well as notes ways in which Birnbaum's... more
This chapter is from the revised and expanded second edition of Solomon Birnbaum's Yiddish. A Survey and Grammar (2015). It addresses the origins and history of Birnbaum's classic work (1979) as well as notes ways in which Birnbaum's "Orthodox", southern-oriented approach to Yiddish differs from that of the Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO).
Research Interests: Jewish Studies, Yiddish Language, Yiddish, Eastern European and Russian Jewish History, Modern Jewish History, and 10 moreStandard Language Ideology, Yiddish Studies, Yiddish Culture and Language, Germanic languages, Germanistische Sprachwissenschaft, YIVO, Yiddish Linguistics, Uriel Weinreich, Max Weinreich, and Solomon Birnbaum
This is the introduction to a 2010 volume based on a conference of the same title held at held at York University in Toronto in 2008.
Research Interests: Yiddish Literature, Yiddish, Eastern European and Russian Jewish History, Modern Jewish History, Yiddish Studies, and 11 moreYiddish Culture and Language, Nationalism and language, Czernowitz Yiddish Conference, Language Standardization, Yiddish Linguistics, Yiddishism, History of Yiddish Studies, Russian and Eastern European Jewish History, History of Czernowitz, Solomon Birnbaum, and Mordkhe Schaechter
Although exceptional for the sheer diversity and longevity of his cultural and political activity, Noah Prylucki illustrates a broader phenomenon common among the secularized nationalist leadership of early twentieth century Eastern... more
Although exceptional for the sheer diversity and longevity of his cultural and political activity, Noah Prylucki illustrates a broader phenomenon common among the secularized nationalist leadership of early twentieth century Eastern European Jewry. He provides an example of an acculturated intellectual who under the influence of the general European movements of Romanticism and populism “discovered” Yiddish as the “authentic” creative expression of an idealized Jewish folk dwelling on the territory of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Claiming to be a non-native speaker of the language, he worked to refashion the folk’s own language (folkshprakh) into an instrument for the attainment of both political and cultural goals on its behalf. Paradoxically, he endeavored to create a kulturshprakh, a version of the language whose growth and cultivation was to be removed from the hands of the Jewish folk which had created it and ultimately entrusted to linguists necessarily at a social remove from it.
Research Interests: Jewish Studies, Yiddish Language, Yiddish, Nationalism, Eastern European and Russian Jewish History, and 9 moreModern Jewish History, Yiddish Studies, Nationalism and language, Czernowitz Yiddish Conference, Language Standardization, Yiddish Linguistics, Yiddishism, Russian and Eastern European Jewish History, and Noah Prylucki
This article examines debates in Poland since the 1860s concerning Jews' naming practices and attempts to resolve the practical and social problems they engendered. Polemics within the Jewish press in Poland, particularly in Warsaw's... more
This article examines debates in Poland since the 1860s concerning Jews' naming practices and attempts to resolve the practical and social problems they engendered. Polemics within the Jewish press in Poland, particularly in Warsaw's Yiddish dailies, reveal competing conceptions of what constitutes an authentic and socially appropriate Jewish name. They also reflect changing perceptions of Yiddish, which had left its stamp on the inventory of names used by Ashkenazic Jews, and its growing place in urban life.
Research Interests: Onomastics, Urbanization, Jewish Languages, Ashkenazic Judaism, Jews in Poland, and 12 moreYiddish Studies, Judaica, Yiddish Culture and Language, Personal Names, History of Poland in twentieth century, Yiddish Linguistics, Polonization, Hirsh-Dovid Nomberg, Jewish press in Warsaw., The Jewish community of Warsaw, Jewish Names, and Noah Prylucki
A discussion of language-based nationalism and Jewish languages.
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Research Interests: Jewish Studies, Nationalism, Eastern European and Russian Jewish History, Jewish History, Modern Jewish History, and 15 moreYiddish Studies, Warsaw, history of Poland, Yiddish Culture and Language, Hillel Zeitlin, Jewish politics, History of Poland in twentieth century, Jewish Diaspora Nationalism, YIVO, Yiddish Linguistics, Yiddishism, Jewish Vilna, Jewish press in Warsaw., Jewish schools, and Noah Prylucki
Research Interests: Yiddish, Poland 1939-45, Lithuanian History, Yiddish Studies, Soviet Yiddish, and 12 morehistory of Poland, Yiddish Culture and Language, Polish-Jewish Relations, Lithuanian Jewry, Yiddish Linguistics, Jewish-Lithuanian Contacts, Max Weinreich, Jewish Vilna, Russian and Eastern European Jewish History, Vilna University, Vilnius (Wilno, Vilna) in the interwar period, and Noah Prylucki
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Research Interests: Jewish Studies, Yiddish Language, Eastern European and Russian Jewish History, Modern Jewish History, Yiddish Studies, and 11 moreAntisemitism, Yiddish Culture and Language, History of New York City, American Jewish History, Weinreich, YIVO, Linguists, Yiddishism, Uriel Weinreich, Max Weinreich, and History of Yivo
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https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030516574 Panel discussion hosted by Polin Museum of Polish Jewish History via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofPOLINMuseum/videos/509434393561832/?fref=tag This volume includes over... more
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030516574
Panel discussion hosted by Polin Museum of Polish Jewish History via Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofPOLINMuseum/videos/509434393561832/?fref=tag
This volume includes over twenty essays regarding the relationship between select "Key Concepts" and antisemitism in the academic and public realms.
Written by leading scholars from a range of disciplines, each chapter highlights the history of a particular concept, details its various uses and changing meanings over time, and highlights its central role in the current study of and debates regarding antisemitism.
Structured around concepts rather than chronology or geography, the volume is designed as a pedagogical tool for scholars teaching undergraduate and graduate courses about antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Genocide Studies as well as about other forms of prejudice and hatred.
Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism also serves as an up to date reference book for scholars and students embarking on new research projects or those interested in learning more about the study of antisemitism and its relationship to other fields.
Panel discussion hosted by Polin Museum of Polish Jewish History via Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofPOLINMuseum/videos/509434393561832/?fref=tag
This volume includes over twenty essays regarding the relationship between select "Key Concepts" and antisemitism in the academic and public realms.
Written by leading scholars from a range of disciplines, each chapter highlights the history of a particular concept, details its various uses and changing meanings over time, and highlights its central role in the current study of and debates regarding antisemitism.
Structured around concepts rather than chronology or geography, the volume is designed as a pedagogical tool for scholars teaching undergraduate and graduate courses about antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Genocide Studies as well as about other forms of prejudice and hatred.
Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism also serves as an up to date reference book for scholars and students embarking on new research projects or those interested in learning more about the study of antisemitism and its relationship to other fields.
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A review of Bilha Shilo's "Ein Drama in Akten. Die Restitution der Sammlungen des Wilnaer YIVO"
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A review of Jess Olson's biography of the remarkable Jewish cultural and political activist Nathan Birnbaum, whose career spanned Zionism, Yiddishism, and anti-nationalist Orthodoxy.
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A review of Marc Volovici's German as a Jewish Problem. The Language Politics of Jewish Nationalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2020.